


Feel the Fog in My Throat, the Mist in My Face

by Catheryne



Series: Against the Dying of the Light [3]
Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23912149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catheryne/pseuds/Catheryne
Summary: Third part of trilogy in this order – Against the Dying of the Light, I Kiss Happiness Into Your Lips and finally, this one. Once they have everything, Blair marvels and Chuck rebels at the thin parallels they slowly discover about their life and that of his parents'.
Relationships: Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf
Series: Against the Dying of the Light [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/822186
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Feel the Fog in My Throat, the Mist in My Face

**Author's Note:**

> This time, the title comes from a Robert Browning poem called Prospice. If you read the poem, don't be scared at any implication you think it will have in this story. Also, please read the other two stories first.

**Part 1**

" _She was a picture of quiet strength. I retreated to her photograph at night while we huddled under leaves we stapled together to form roofs over our heads. The rain never stopped, and when the leaves leaked I covered the photo with my hand so it wouldn't get wet."_

Blair frowned at the hastily scribbled words written in ink that ran. The leather notebook was worse for well, the leather scarred from abuse and age. Her fingers danced on the edges of the yellowing pages. She glanced up at Chuck, who sat in his father's chair, running his hand over the mahogany desk.

Three months had passed since he stood in front of their friends and announced his proud achievement. He was twenty-six years old, and after four years of trying, he was going to have a baby with his wife. It took that long until he found a building that she liked and once she said it was beautiful, he had bought it for her.

They were moving, and the very act of picking the items they would bring was exhausting to them both. She sat down quietly in her seat, with her treasure trove on her lap. A long time ago, on that month when he was missing and she was waiting for Jack to tell her where he was, she found it. In that small box she held more of Bart Bass than anything in his will. She had discovered it herself, while Chuck was away in God knew where, and Jack and Lily battled with the lawyers to determine just what would happen to Bart's empire.

To everyone else, she was exploring knick knacks while she waited for Chuck to snap out of his self-indulgent trance and return to the life he deserved. The rest of the world sorted out Bart's affairs while his orphaned son sought refuge in his solitude.

And Blair—Blair discovered everything that Chuck never knew.

It had been a long time. Blair had kept the memorabilia in her box, took it to the penthouse when they moved. Blair had waited through the years to figure out when he should see the box. But life had happened and almost tore her marriage apart, and somehow, the box of memories slid unnoticed to the back of her head.

When you're moving, many forgotten things resurfaced. And so did the box. She leafed through the pages of the journal. The photograph fell, in sepia, to the top of the stack on the box. She picked up the print. It badly needed restoration. It occurred to her that this was the photograph Bart wrote about, the one he looked at every night while his troop hid from the communists.

" _The end of war is coming. That's what the commander said. At home, people protested in the streets to send us back. I hope to God they listen before we get killed in the forest. I'd much rather die in the rice fields. You get spotted faster there."_

She had heard of these journals, the ones that the soldiers wrote when they were deployed. Some troops wrote dozens and dozens of letters, and others wrote in notebooks. Either way, they were made to write their thoughts, their fears, their messages to the loved ones they had waiting back home. It chilled her to know she was reading Bart Bass' thoughts, and felt like an intruder.

" _I don't know if I'm more scared of dying here or finding out that we're being sent home, then having to face her."_

"What is that?" Blair jumped in her seat, then looked up to see Chuck with his eyes set on the photograph on the pile.

"Do you know who it is?" she asked, her voice small, unassuming.

"This is my mom," he answered. "She's younger here." Blair's eyes followed his hand as he slid the photo into his back pocket.

She shrugged away her disappointment when he did not expound. She could not recognize her, simply because she had only ever seen one picture of the Bass matriarch. It was the one in the picture frame that he used to keep in his bedroom. She returned to the notebook in her hand. She cocked her head to the side and asked, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"No." He licked his lips. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed," Chuck told her. "Aren't you?" He slid his hand to cover her still belly and whispered in her ear. "Lie down so the baby can sleep."

"I'm not tired yet," she returned. Blair wanted to read, explore her box of trinkets and determine if Chuck should see them now. He probably should, but sometimes she wondered how much her husband had healed. With all the strength he had shown her, and his stubbornness to hold their marriage together, his father always seemed to be the topic that made his will waver.

Chuck pressed a kiss on her cheek. "Don't take too long."

Faced with only his retreating back, she called out, "Your dad fought in Vietnam."

He turned his head to the side, as if listening. "Everyone knew he was old," he parried, as if her revelation did not carry any meaning to him.

"It was right before the American exit. He was just as old as you."

At eighteen, Bart Bass had crawled through the mud under a hot tropical son, carried men on his back to escape an assault, and had killed an American soldier that he suspected was a double agent. No wonder nothing Chuck could ever do seemed good enough, accomplished enough.

"That's interesting," he answered.

Blair gave him a shy smile when he walked back to her, and she prepared herself to tell her about the first heroic anecdote she found in the journal. But instead of asking her to tell him more, he caught her up in his arms and said, "You're going to bed. We have a sonogram tomorrow."

His hair had grown, and some of it fell over his forehead. She had to remember to pull him to a salon tomorrow too, after their appointment. Blair pushed the hair off his forehead and kissed him there. He growled playfully, because he often told her a kiss on the forehead made him feel like a child. He caught her lower lip between his, and she sighed. "Five months," she said, her voice with a tinge of reverence. "I hope the baby's okay."

"He's a Bass," he said as he carried her across the floor towards their bedroom. "And you're heavy," Chuck pointed out. "He's fine and fat."

She slapped at his shoulder playfully. "Tomorrow we'll know if it's a boy or a girl. Maybe then you'll not refer to it as 'he' all the time."

He arched his eyebrow at her as he deposited her into bed. She was starting to look like a whale at five months, and despite his comments that she was heavy, he still carried her like they were newlyweds crossing a threshold. And he never showed the strain of her weight in his face.

And instead of making her feel insecure that she was gradually putting on baby weight, when he talked to her, and he looked at her, even at five months, she still felt she was the most attractive woman in the world.

"I just hope when you see that the baby's got a gender, you'd stop referring to him as 'it,'" Chuck pointed out, causing her to giggle.

"Daddy's offended," she teased.

Chuck frowned, then sat up by her feet and pulled off her shoes. "The kid's not an alien, Blair."

"Names," she whispered, watching him as he dropped her shoes onto the floor, and started massaging her feet. She sighed in audible pleasure at his ministration. She loved that he would do that, just because he saw on tv how a pregnant woman was complaining about her sore feet. "Let's think of names."

She thought the massage would feel better if she was not wearing her support stockings, that she never failed to put on now to help prevent varicose veins. And just like that, his hands had slid under her skirt and he rolled down her pantyhose. He flung the hosiery to the other side of the room. It landed on top of the tv set.

"You know that's an expensive pair."

But expensive did not mean a word to him. She remembered an entry in Bart's journal, and she had to remember to show that to him soon. Bart had returned to America with nothing but the clothes on his back and fifty dollars. Within two years, the man had made his first million. Within five, it was forty. He had lived the American dream.

" _I worked harder than the bulls they used to sow their fields in those paddies. Because I swore to him I would find her. I would give him everything he would have given her, everything he never could anymore."_

"Venice," he said, "if it's a girl."

"Venice," she repeated. "We could have made her in Venice." Blair flushed at memory. And then she remembered making love in the broad light of day in France. "What if we made her in Paris?"

Chuck appeared scandalized even while his hands went to her calves to stroke the flow of her blood. "You forget that a lot of her money come from hotels. Please don't make our daughter a hotel heiress named Paris."

Blair considered the suggestion, then grinned. "Paris if it's a boy," she suggested.

"I can live that. It will make us sound intellectual, like we actually read the Iliad."

Blair kicked her foot into his ribs, chuckling. "I read the Iliad!" she protested.

Chuck smirked. "Alright. At least one of us did. You can say you named the baby after a Trojan prince and I'll say we named him after where my boys finally got to your girl."

She did not know if she should think it was sexy or offensive that he could be so boyish with his description. But she supposed she should be amused. "What if we made the baby in Amsterdam?" she said later on, contemplating.

"There is no way I am calling my kid Amsterdam," Chuck said seriously.

"It's a great city. I enjoyed it," Blair pointed out. "And there's a big possibility that we made the baby there."

"In the shower?"

She flushed. "We can call her Amy or Tammy. Or if it's a boy, maybe… ummm… Tim?"

"Over my dead body," he said decisively. "No one's naming my son or daughter after a small fishing village that has legalized prostitution and literary cafes where pot is passed around like peanuts."

Blair chortled with laughter, because those were the very things that made his eyes sparkle with delight when they visited.

"Let Nate call his kid Amsterdam or Cannabis when he finally decides he wants one," Chuck grumbled.

She drew him towards off, and thanked him for the massage with a kiss. He lay down beside her and Blair pressed against him with her head pillowed on his arm. His hand found its way over to the taut skin of her belly. He bared her to his eyes, then reached for the coconut oil and dripped several drops on her skin. With one hand, he spread the warm oil on the stretched skin.

" _She was a delicate flower, ethereal like her name. I was coming home and I needed to be the one to tell her. I faced gunfire in a rush of adrenaline and afterwards when I came down from that high I still wasn't scare at all. But having to face her, to tell her that he was dead because of me—"_

"There's one name we haven't considered," she said softly. Because really, if it was not for that tragic accident, who knew how long they would have run in circles around each other? "Do you want to call him Bart."

"No," came the curt, simple answer.

She closed her eyes, because the warm oil on her belly, coupled by the slow, steady rhythm of his hand, made her drowsy. "Lily said I look like your mom," she whispered sleepily. "Do I?"

She felt his kiss on her temple, and his arms wrap around her. A little too firm, a little too tight. "Sometimes," he told her. "Just sometimes." Blair drifted off to sleep, because it was always so easy to sleep in Chuck's arms. "If you love me, you won't be like my mother," she heard him whisper into her hair, just before she sank into slumber.

**Part 2**

No one ever predicted that Chuck Bass could be like this.

Blair lightly traced the tip of her finger over her husband's features. She ran a faint line from his strong brows, then stretched her body so she could kiss the worry line that had started to form in between. That had not been there when he married her, and she could just think about the ribbing he would give her when she brought that up. Her fingers, butterfly soft, teased a soft touch along the angle of his nose. It flared slightly at the sensation, even in his sleep. He looked so much like himself at eighteen that she could not help but nip teasingly at the cartilage. And then, with her fingertip she traced the frame of his lips, her own lips curving into a faint smile.

If were having a boy, she hoped he would have Chuck's lips.

He was everything. He had done everything. And now she did not know just how much she owed this man. He had singlehandedly held their marriage together when she was lost. Her throat closed. She would not have had the strength of character to the same.

And they all said Chuck Bass was not good enough for her. If she were still lost, she would hazard to say that he deserved better. But she was here, and he grounded her, and she knew—they were perfect together. Her hand settled on her belly, warm and supple after an overnight treatment with the coconut oil he insisted to spread over her every time they were about to sleep. Perfection spawned perfection. She could not wait to see their baby.

"I'm waiting for my kiss."

She looked up in surprise at his still closed eyes, but his lashes fluttered so prettily as he kept them closed. "You're no Sleeping Beauty," she said slyly.

He shook his head, then pulled her up tight against him. "You touch, you kiss," he insisted, still not opening his eyes.

With a sigh and pretend reluctance, Blair pressed a brief kiss on her husband's lips. "Wake up, Chuck Bass," she breathed.

"Not enough, Blair," he responded, cupping her butt and pulling her closer to him. "You can do a lot better than that, Mrs Bass."

And she could because he'd taught her well. Blair pressed up close, as close as her curving belly would allow, and caught his face in her hands, drawing him down to her lips. His parted under the onslaught of her mouth, and she hummed deep in her throat with self-satisfaction.

She was good.

His eyes burst open.

That good.

"Did you feel it?" he choked.

She stifled a grin, because really, who could not feel Chuck Bass through his pants, early in the morning, in bed with a wife like her?

"I felt him kick," he said, his voice filled with awe. "He kicked, Blair. Hard." Chuck blinked at her. "You didn't feel it?"

"Oh." How did he expect her to react when she was pressed up so close she could only feel him? "It's been doing that a lot since yesterday."

Chuck shook his head, the line between his brows growing deeper. "How do I not know?"

"It was just yesterday, Chuck," she said.

"I should know these things, Blair," he pointed out, his voice curt.

Blair closed her eyes and released a breath, not wanting to be offended by the tone of his voice. He was right. She should have told him the first time the baby kicked, even if she was in the shower and he was in the office, she should have picked up the phone and told him then. He would have run straight home and kept his hand on her belly until the baby kicked again.

The last three months had been an inordinate amount of attention, and really she should not have been surprised. They've waited far too long, sacrificed far too much, came far too close to breaking apart to be where they were now.

And so she said the only thing she could, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

He took her hand in his and brought it up to his lips. "I want to know, Blair."

"Alright," she agreed. She pulled herself up to sit, then clapped her hand over her eyes, dizzy from the movement. "Wow," she whispered. "Sat up too fast. I shouldn't have done that." And then he was helping her lie back down. "I'm okay."

"Stay put," he cautioned her. "I'll bring you breakfast."

Blair nodded, because much as she needed to show him that she could be up and about, the world was spinning around her and she just knew, if she tried to stand now, it would not be pretty.

When he came returned, her eyes opened, but she did not raise her head. No sudden movement, she told herself. The bed against her cheek set the world right again. He had his phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear.

"Cancel it. That too," he said into the mic. "You know what, Linds, cancel my day. I'm calling in sick. Tell the board."

The CEO of Bass Industries was entering her room carrying a breakfast tray. And she could not even sit up and tease him about it while her vision swam. But he looked too good for words. Under the tray, he had her box with him—Bart's box. Of course, no one can keep a secret from Chuck for very long.

"You didn't have to stay. How much will it cost you to call in sick for a day?" Blair asked, even as the mere decline of the bed when he sat down on the edge made her feel like she was rolling on a waterbed.

"I don't care," he answered lightly, and translated it meant at least five hundred grand.

When she felt her head right itself, she gingerly pulled herself up in the bed and sat back against the pillows. Chuck placed the tray down with the box, then positioned her breakfast in front of her. "Thank you," she said. "But I mean it, Chuck, women get pregnant all the time. You don't need to be all Dorota on me."

He latched onto that. "Do you need Dorota?"

She rolled her eyes. When her vision swam for a moment, she admitted it was not the best decision she ever made. "I meant, Chuck, let go a little." She reached out a hand, the one with his mother's diamond, and rubbed his shoulders. "I don't want you getting too tense on me. You're going to crack," she said teasingly, but her words were lined with the truth.

Chuck picked up a piece of toast, then spread butter over it. He handed it to Blair, who dutifully bit into the bread. "We already lost one," he said quietly, only after she finished off her food. "And I never knew about it until after."

Blair placed her glass down, then covered his hand with hers. "You said it yourself. This Bass is sticking around. He's kicking hard, and it's been five months. It really looks like he's tucked safe in there." And using his pronoun, she finally realized why Chuck did not want her referring to the baby as 'it.' 'He' was there, safe and strong. 'He' was sticking around. 'He' was real. "Do me a favor," she said.

He looked at her, because really, he did not need to answer. She knew he would do anything she asked.

"Tell me when you're afraid?" she said, her voice strong. "I'm worried about you."

"I'm the last person you should be worried about," he told her.

But she refused to let it go. They were finally happy. She would entertain nothing that would threaten that. "Promise me."

Chuck picked up the tray and placed it on the coffee table. Later, magic would happen while they went to the doctor, and they would come home to no clutter at all, not even that tray. He placed a hand over the box.

"I'm afraid," he said. "But it's not something we should talk about right now. Alright?"

It was a step. A small step. A wonderful one. She gave him a small smile and nodded. "You have my Bart Bass box." She watched his face. "Are you angry I kept it?"

He took off the lid then said, "It's something to entertain you while we wait for our appointment."

And she could not help the emptiness she felt that he did not answer her question. "Chuck."

"I'll never be angry at you," he murmured as he picked through the items. He remembered the photograph he had taken from her the night before, then frowned at the contents of the box. He stood and took the picture from the back pocket of the pants he had discarded. "When did you say my dad was in Vietnam?" He frowned at the woman's face, immortalized in shades of brownish red ink.

"Seventy four and seventy five," she told him. "And then they all got shipped back. He was looking at that picture most of the time." It said so in his journal. "He must have really loved your mother."

Chuck raised the picture and squinted at the image. And the he looked up at his wife. "This isn't my mother, Blair. It can't be. My mother was six years old in seventy five."

"What?" she asked, intrigued. "You said that's your mom."

"She looks like my mom."

Blair picked up the journal and rifled through the pages, searching for an answer.

_His backpack hanging over his shoulder, Bart Bass ran from the military jeep and towards the dark-haired woman who had warmed his nights while he lay curled under tropical foliage. With the child sleeping in her arms, and her face fresh with tears, he had never laid his eyes on a sight more beautiful to him._

" _Is it true, Bart?" she whispered. "I wouldn't believe any of them. But I'll believe you."_

_He longed to reach for her, even as they stood under the star-studded night. There had been stars in Vietnam too. When you lay under the open sky, you see them all twinkling and falling as they would. And even the clearest night there could not compare to Evelyn's sad eyes._

_Reluctantly, he nodded his head. "I took shrapnel to my gut." Bart raised his uniform and showed Evelyn the nasty scar. "Couldn't move. I lay there in the mud under rain so thick you couldn't see two feet in front of you."_

_Evelyn buried her face in her daughter's brown hair. "Did he save you, Bart?"_

" _I woke up with a medic who told me Jim ran through the paddies under fire to carry me back." He swallowed, and it was bitter. " He took two bullets in the back for me. "Evelyn, if I had been conscious, I wouldn't have—"_

" _Bart," she said, stopping him. "It's enough. He loved you like a brother. It's enough."_

_She was the love of his life and hers was dead because of him. And he would give her everything he had, everything he could. Jim's wife. Jim's daughter._

_And it wouldn't be enough._

"What does it say?" Chuck asked, staring at the face in the picture that was half-familiar and half-strange.

"Your father was in love with his best friend's wife," she said softly.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. "That's at least one thing similar between us. Glad you never actually married Nate even with that whole affair with the Vanderbilt ring."

"You both liked brunettes," she told him with a grin, nodding towards the photograph. "It's amazing. She really does look like your mom, doesn't she?" Blair turned to the box and rifled through the items. "Bart had a life, didn't he?" she said in amazement, holding up a newspaper clipping of a twenty-five year old Bart Bass cutting a ribbon. "His first building."

Chuck had bought his first building at twenty-six. His father beat him by a year, and Chuck started off with more money than Bart's fifty dollars.

Chuck closed the box and extended his hand to her. "There's more time for that later. Let's go find out if we're having a boy."

**Part 3**

_His pace grew faster the closer he came to the small apartment where she lived. A long day's work, and the measly earnings he had was spent on a simple meal he now bore in a brown paper bag under his arm. Bart Bass burst into a grin. Very soon he would get that promotion, and he would take Evelyn and Misty out for dinner in real honest-to-God restaurant, where Misty could have a cloth table napkin placed on her lap for the first time, and not use the paper disposable ones, and Evelyn would not need to tidy up after and wash dishes until her fingers were wrinkled._

_He would build an empire. Soon he would have enough money that he could take care of Jim's family. Evelyn would never need to cry again._

_The way she cried every night of the last two weeks since he returned to America._

" _Jim wouldn't want you crying all the time, Evelyn," he had told her._

" _Jim can't see me," she had whispered in return, while she stared out the window with her vacant eyes. "He can't see anything now."_

_If he told her he loved her, he wondered if there would be some life in her eyes. He pitied the little girl, only six years old, who played in the corner but watched her mother surreptitiously. He saw the thick lashes lower, the frail shoulders slump._

_Bart could see the small apartment from afar, and he broke into a run. He made his way up the steps, taking them two at a time. Running from enemy fire brought speed and agility where none before existed. He stopped outside their door and rapped._

" _Evelyn!" he called out when there was no response._

_Bart pressed his ear to the door, and that was when he heard the frantic cry of a little girl. With his shoulder he barreled onto the door, again, again, until it flew open, banging against the wall._

" _Evelyn!" he called again._

_His gaze flew to the corner of the living room, where the little girl often played in solitude. Finding it empty he made his way to the bedroom that mother and daughter shared. He pushed the door open and saw the girl standing outside the bathroom, bawling for her mother. Bart's heart jumped to his throat. His brown paper bag fell, spilling the contents to the floor._

_Bart ran to the bathroom and saw her in the tub, her eyes closed, underwater. He pulled her head out from under the water. "Evelyn," he called her name. He grabbed the towel from the rack and spread it over her body, then carried her from the tub and out of the bathroom._

" _Your mom will be fine, Misty," he said to the child, forcing gentleness into his voice so as not to panic her. Misty blinked up her lucid eyes at him. He placed Evelyn on the bed. He had done it before. In war, you did all you could, learned everything possible, to save a life._

_He breathed air into her lungs until she sputtered bathwater onto her thin pillows. She opened her eyes, and at the sight of him, her face crumpled. His heart clenched under the shadow of disappointment in her gaze._

" _No," she moaned. "No, no. He was waiting, Bart."_

" _Evelyn," he cut her off sharply. Bart turned to the little girl who stood in trepidation, watching for her mother. "Misty's here."_

" _I want to be with Jim."_

" _No," Bart said firmly, his voice dropping. "You have a daughter to take care of."_

" _You'll take care of her, Bart," Evelyn said tearfully. "You'll make sure of it."_

_When had fallen into a fitful sleep, Bart carted the little girl towards the living room. He picked up the fallen food and disposed of it, then prepared a sandwich for the girl. When he returned, she was making her way to the bedroom._

" _Misty, here's your dinner." The girl shook her head. "Where are you going?"_

" _Watch over mommy," the girl answered. Bart nodded his head, and the girl disappeared into the bedroom. He settled his exhausted body into the couch._

_The little girl woke him a few hours later. To Bart, it felt like he slept for longer. He glanced at the clock. It was four in the morning. He needed to be at work at six. His boss hated nine teen year old upstarts who thought they had all the rights in the country just because they fought in the war. Bart was loathe to give them any reason to delay his promotion. He could really use the cash._

_He sat up on the couch. "Why are you still awake?"_

_The girl took his hand in hers, then pulled him towards the bedroom. Bart's forehead creased as he allowed the child to lead him inside. And then he saw her._

_His Evelyn, beautiful, ethereal, a body that stepped right out of his dreams. A bottle lay upended on the bedside table, a half dozen spills scattered, starkly visible against the dark wood. Her hand fell limply out of bed, and on the floor was a photograph. Bart set his jaw and moved forward, placed his fingers on the pulsepoint at her throat._

_Found none._

_He picked up the discarded photo, most likely it slid from her slack fingers. Jim and Evelyn, right before he left for the war, judging from the pristine crispness of the uniform he wore. And there was Misty in front of them, the center of the picture, far too little to understand where her father was going._

_He turned around at the child who now stared at her mother. Bart leaned his head on the edge of the bed._

_Two days later Jim's parents arrived to take the little girl away._

"He wrote," Blair narrated, "that he would have done anything for her."

She knew exactly how that felt. She had lived like that, and so had he.

"But she wouldn't let him. It was so sad," she continued.

Thank God he got through to her. And he did not need to end up like his father. She squeezed his hand when she noticed the flicker in his eye that spoke about the very real terror that raced through his body. If he had not pierced through the haze of her own guilt, if she had not been obstinate in her mission to save him, one of them would have ended up like the woman in the photograph, still unnamed, immortalized only in the memory of man now also dead.

And that was when she placed a hand on his cheek. "We wouldn't have ended up like that," she told him. "Never ever."

The doctor rubbed the gel onto the instrument, then gingerly placed it on Blair's belly. Blair jerked in surprise, then laughed. "It's cold."

"You're starting to get used to it," the doctor answered, chuckling. "At least you didn't squeal this time."

When the image started to form on the monitor, Chuck's eyes were glued to the movement as if he understood it.

"I'll turn up the volume," the doctor told them.

It was not the first time they heard heartbeat in a room like this. But when she heard the fast, almost frantic pace echoing like being heard from underwater, she marveled at the sound. "Oh my God," she exclaimed. "It's so strong."

She met her husband's eyes, and found his haunted. If she could only sit up and draw him into his arms, she would have.

"Mr and Mrs Bass," the doctor said.

"Chuck and Blair," her husband offered. "We're not Mr and Mrs Bass. Not here," he said.

The doctor nodded with a smile, because the offer was gracious and humble. But Blair read in his words so much more. "Chuck, Blair, look at this." She pointed to a faint profile on the screen. "This is an arm. And a leg." The image zoomed slightly, and the doctor made a pleased sound. "And this tells me you're having a boy."

"Chuck, he's got a little penis!" she exclaimed, even thought she did not see which of the little waves it was that the doctor meant. "So cute."

"A little Bass boy," he murmured. The first child, always a son, Bart used to tell him. A son to hold the corporate empire when you could not.

"A big baby," the doctor emphasized. "We can already see here—the eyes."

"I can see the nose, and look at those lips," Blair said. "The baby's scowling. He looks like you," she told Chuck.

Her husband did not respond to her teasing remark. Instead he turned to the doctor. "Bigger than normal?"

"Bigger than normal, but not alarming." The doctor smiled at Blair in encouragement. "You've been taking care of yourself, I see." Patient history was vital, and Blair was proud of her achievement. Apart from the morning sickness, there was no binging, no purging. Chuck had made her all better.

"You see," Blair said gently, tugging at his hand. "Everything's perfectly fine. Stop frowning, Chuck. If you get more wrinkles, I'll dump you for a newer model."

He cracked a smile, and she suspected it was just because she seemed to need it. "Shouldn't I be the one saying that?"

"But you know you never will," she parried back. Because if there was anything Chuck Bass and his scandalous verbal tango would never dare taunt, it was her security in the marriage they both swore would stand any challenge now. Yet no matter how strong, he would never dare taunt her insecurities like she would never push a bottle of scotch under his nose.

Chuck turned to the doctor. "This morning when she stood up she got so dizzy that she couldn't move for some time."

"Dizziness is normal in many pregnancies, Chuck," the doctor told him. She turned to Blair. "Did you faint?" Blair shook her head. "Well, it sounds like a normal symptom. There's pressure on your blood vessels because of the weight of the baby."

"So the baby is too big?" Chuck jumped in. The doctor shook her head. "We had a miscarriage eight years ago."

"Your wife can deliver a perfectly normal baby after a miscarriage. Chuck, I can tell you right now that there is nothing wrong with the pregnancy."

Blair squeezed her hand over Chuck's. "Can we enjoy this for a while?" she suggested. Blair nodded to the hazy image on the monitor screen. "Look at your son, Chuck."

Blair held her breath, silently encouraging Chuck to just turn and look. After meeting her gaze and seeing her arch her brows, he turned and focused on the image. His face broke into a hesitant smirk. "He is big," he said, agreeing with the doctor as if he had ever before seen an ultrasound image of a baby at five months. He remained silent, studying the image. "Wow." He pointed to a distinct shape. "Look at that boy." He smirked at Blair. "Damn."

"Chuck," she chuckled, delighted at the interest he showed, "I think the doctor said that was a leg."

Her husband laughed. "That makes sense."

She extended her hand to him. When he took it, she pulled him to her for a kiss. "He's beautiful, Chuck. Thank you."

He laid his forehead against hers, closed his eyes and breathed deep. "Four months. Just four more months."

"And then you'll relax?" she asked. He nodded against her forehead. "You'll kill me before then!"

"Blair," he groaned in obvious complaint.

The doctor printed pictures of the ultrasound, then handed the images to Chuck. "Something for your fridge."

Blair grinned and reached for the pictures herself. She slid it out of the envelope and held it up proudly beside Chuck's face. "Amsterdam really does look like you."

"Stop teasing. He'll get beat up by other boys if you give him a pansy ass name like Amsterdam Bass."

Blair shrugged. "Didn't we agree on Paris?"

"We proposed Paris. We haven't decided."

"Why not? It's a nice, sentimental name."

The doctor placed a box of tissues beside Blair, then removed the suction cups from her belly. Chuck waved off the doctor when she started drawing out tissues. He took the tissue from the doctor and wiped off the gel from Blair's tummy himself.

"Because I had Lindsey research and give me a nice hefty background on the guy," he informed her, as if reporting the results from a private eye. "He doesn't end up with a happy life."

"Chuck!" She giggled, watching him clean her up. "Are you vetoing a perfectly legitimate name because Paris of Troy doesn't end up with a happily ever after?"

"This is important, Blair." Chuck threw the used tissues into the small trash can in the office, then helped her up to a standing position slowly. He helped her out of the candy pink hospital gown and into her Marc Jacobs blouse.

"I know. I'm sorry. We still have four months to decide," she said, lightening the mood. "We can come up with at least a dozen choices in four months, then have him choose when he's born."

He nodded enthusiastically. "I'll write the choices on a board and the first name he kicks at will be his name."

"Put Amsterdam in the choices," she instructed.

"Of course."

But with a smirk like that, she just bet he wouldn't. Later that afternoon, as she rifled through her Bart Bass treasures, she spotted the laminated ultrasound picture that Bart had kept.

She took out the scrapbook she had been struggling to fill, then framed it and glued it right beside her baby's first photo. At the bottom, she wrote in cursive. "Father and son."

" _Bart, look!"_

_Bart Bass looked up from the documents he was poring through. His pregnant wife came bounding into the office, taking his breath away with her familiar brown hair tucked into a proper chignon. Sometimes, with that face and those eyes, he almost slipped and called her by the name of a woman long dead. He would be the last man to deny that she had captured his attention when, after twelve years, he saw her again, and when she walked towards him all he could remember was her mother._

" _Misty," he greeted with a smile. "How was your check up?"_

" _Wonderful," she answered, her cheer and eagerness showing all of her twenty-two years. She presented the black and white picture to him. "It's a boy."_

" _Of course it's a boy," he pointed out. "The first child is always a son." Bart pulled his wife to his lap._

_She settled her arms on his shoulders. "Happy?"_

" _Happier than I've ever been," was his smooth reply._

_She was young, so young at twenty-two, and already she was more than enough to be worth trading his millions for. When he saw her again, four years ago to debut in New York, he had thought he was seeing her mother's ghost. But Misty was Misty, and he could barely touch her even as she—and she had confessed it all later—set out to bag him._

" _Aren't you glad I chased you, Bass?" she said, her eyes twinkling at him._

_Destiny had a strange sense of humor._

" _Tell me, what shall we name your heir?" she pronounced grandly._

" _A multimillion dollar estate should go to a young man with a proud, royal name."_

_Misty Bass arched her eyebrows, then placed a finger on his nose. "Bart Bass, do not tell me our son will only get millions." She huffed. "It better be no less than a billion dollars." Bart easily laughed. He had such an easy laugh, he noticed. Back in Vietnam they didn't laugh. After Evelyn, he found no humor in most things. But Misty made it so easy to laugh._

" _Charles," he offered._

" _Chuck," she decided._

_And Chuck it was going to be._

_In a few years, he would teach his son to catch a baseball, and Misty would make him laugh through the blunders of a young boy. Maybe he would take his family to an island in Barbados, for sun and sand. Chuck would probably make a sandcastle while Misty worked on a tan._

_He peered at the images of Chuck on the scan. "We should have this preserved," he suggested._

_Misty took it from him. "I'll have your secretary run it through a laminating machine." She got up off his lap and blew him a kiss. "Now get back to work, Mr Bass, and turn millions to billions for Chuck."_

"Chuck," she called into the kitchen. Blair frowned when she did not find her husband there. She made her way to the bathroom and found it empty.

"In here."

She walked towards the living room, holding the scrapbook in her hands. She paused at the doorway at the sight. Her husband sat back on the beige sofa. An unopened bottle of scotch sat right at the center of the coffee table, in front of him. He made no move to reach for it, merely stared.

Blair swallowed, then gingerly made her way towards him. She did not comment on the amber bottle gleaming under the apartment lights. Instead, she sat down and pressed herself against him. Blair placed the scrapbook on his lap, pointedly ignoring the bottle.

She turned his attention to the page she had only just worked on. "Chuck, look what I found. Look what your dad kept."

He looked down at the ultrasound scans framed by small faux flat crystals. "Father and son," he read. "I like it."

"Good," she whispered. "Look at me."

He did.

"We're good."

Part 4

"Look at me."

He did.

"We're good."

Her lips parted at what she recognized in his eyes—the raw fear was paralyzing. It was his fear, but it struck a chord even in her heart. She closed the scrapbook and set it aside. His eyes flickered to the movement and he fixed his stare on the brown book that now sat beside the bottle.

"Chuck," she said, the urgency coming off of her voice in waves, "what's wrong with you?" Blair had been prepared to ignore the scotch, to just show him she was there, but that was before she saw… him. She clasped her hand with his.

He shook his head, taking his gaze of the scrapbook and meeting her pleading one. He gave her a smile, forced—she could see. "Don't worry about me."

He started to pull his hand away, but she gripped tighter instead. Her jaw set, she shook her head. "I'm not letting go."

He regarded her quietly, and she crazed to repeat her promise to him. Through anything, she would stand by him. But instead she maintained the silence between them, hoping at least the way she held his hand was enough to remind him. They had said the words often enough. He knew. He would always know.

"Please." She placed her hands of his cheeks. "The only way we can get through this is together," she reminded him. He said it often enough.

He pulled her to him, and buried his nose in her hair. Blair settled herself under his chin, pressed a kiss in the hollow of his throat. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I feel so guilty," he confessed. "I'm sorry, Blair."

It came from nowhere, and other wives would have pushed away. Guilt like that meant one thing in a marriage. In any other marriage except theirs.

Whatever it was that weighed on him now, it went past the two of them, came from as far back as he could possibly remember. When it came to the two of them, to faith, to loyalty, it was a waste to doubt Chuck Bass.

"You're forgiven," was her immediate reply. No need to think it over, no need to mull or to ask.

"You won't forgive me if you knew what it is."

"I'll forgive you anything," she said, confident in her words because she knew they were the truth.

"You don't know that."

She raised her head to meet his eyes. "I know."

"I'm turning out to be just like my dad."

After what she knew now about Bart, and being the hopeless romantic she was, it did not seem to her to be so awful.

To him, it was possibly the worst thing in the world. He had grown up with everything that money could afford, but nothing of what any child could truly need. She had been there through the rush of Victrola, the way his hopes rose at the prospect of his father's approval, the crushing disappointment when Bart had dismissed him. She had been there through the many summer and winter breaks when he had to throw wild, forgotten, lost teenage weekends just because Bart could spend none with him.

"That can't be right," she said. For a moment, she lost the conviction in her voice.

"I'll hate this kid," he told her, as cool and matter-of-fact as those words should never be. Her eyes flew to him. "I realized it today at the hospital." Still, she kept her grasp on his hand, even though for the first time she wanted to hastily pull it away. "Now I know why my father was like that to me, all these years."

For the life of her, she could not think of any answer she could give except a repeat of everything she'd said before. So she did refute him with the same old exclamation.

He continued. "And I can't blame him now. I'll hate the baby if anything happens to you."

"Chuck," she managed with great effort. She searched for words, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing she could say that the doctor hadn't already said. She felt the panic rise inside her, real panic. He was drowning, again, for the first time in close to a decade, he was drowning and she was the one who needed to save him. "What are you talking about?" Blair only realized she was crying when the words came out in a sob. She should not be crying. Chuck did not cry when he tried to put pieces of her back together.

"I was the one who wanted a kid, and I'm going to screw him up the way my dad screwed me up."

"You're scaring me," was her broken whisper. With every statement he drew further and further away. "Chuck, I'm fine."

"So was my mother," he rasped in one huge release.

_New York society, Upper East Side particularly, had looked down their noses at Bart Bass when he made his first million. Over the years as his wealth grew, he saw the disapproving looks less frequently. Of course, the stigma remained. He could tell from the half-hidden smirks that would suddenly evaporate when he turned his head. He knew it from the thinly veiled sarcasm that accompanied magazine profiles of him. He was barely a war hero, he read, when the font stated that he saw the war at the end of it, and benefited from America clamoring for the return of the troops. He was blessed by the shifting winds of fortune in Wall Street they would write, and Bart would actually read between the lines and conclude they spoke about his lack of skill and the fact that it was only stroke of luck that he struck gold._

_And so it was with great reluctance that he showed up to the annual debutante ball. The invitation he received in the mail made his shackles rise, but he went nonetheless. As much as he wanted to avoid the snobs that populated Manhattan's elite, they were still his primary customers. Public relations, he found out early in his business career, was the blood that coursed through the veins of the most successful ventures founded in New York._

_Now here he was, thirty and single, standing prey to old money who no longer had as much, his new money apparently a stench so stark and overwhelming that bejeweled predators eyed him with interest._

_He was the faucet that would pump vitality into their withering gardens. When the usher showed him his place card, in an enviable table at the very forefront of the presentation, he shook his head at just the things money could accomplish._

" _Karen Anne Schumaker, escorted by James Earl Carlisle. Karen Anne will continue volunteering to teach children in war torn countries until her wedding to James in two years time. She will then managing her household, and hopefully have at least three children by the time she's twenty five."_

_The applause was suitably loud as the UES statistics were read by the master of ceremonies._

" _Desiree Theodora Coates—"_

_The names and the faces blended together. Bart found the plans more and more appalling, the escorts sweatier and sweatier whenever a pair was presented on stage._

" _Lovely young women, are they not, Mr Bass?"_

_Bart's attention shifted to the silver-haired matron who now leaned across the table to speak with him._

" _Pretty little girls," he returned, stressing his words._

" _Yes, yes. We've heard you prefer ladies of a more mature variety." And somehow, he was offended by the implication—whether they spoke about his sex life as a bachelor in New York, or his entanglement with the older widow from long ago—because his private life was just that. Private. "But you know, Mr Bass, a lot of businessmen would rather work with those in their inner circle."_

_To hell with them. He could afford to choose the businesses he worked with. If a man was predisposed to choose against dealing with him because he had nothing anchoring him to the old money that still reigned supreme over Manhattan, then he had no interest working with that man._

" _Maristela Corinne Spencer, escorted by Devon Albert Lucas. Maristela plans to spend the next year bonding with her paternal grandparents as she joins them after a long time living in the other side of the country. She will be interning in the Spencer group of companies to learn the family business."_

_Bart scowled, then looked up at the stage to keep himself from snapping at the woman. It would not reflect well on him to be seen arguing with the elderly._

_He stood up so abruptly he knocked his delicate chair off its legs. He felt everyone's eyes on him, but he kept his stunned attention on the debutante. She was a ghost. She had to be a ghost. With her brown hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, adorned with pink and white flowers that stood in sharp contrast with her mane, it seemed like she stepped right out of her past._

" _Mr Bass, is something wrong?" asked a waiter, who righted his chair._

_The girl on the stage turned her attention on him, then broke into a large smile and waved. He fell heavily back into his seat. "No," he murmured. Bart stumbled out into the veranda and fumbled in his pocket for his hard cigarette case. He drew out one stick and lit up. He sucked on the cigarette so heavily he swore half of it burned off by the time he blew out the smoke._

_He needed to get away from here._

_But still, he finished three more sticks before he slipped his case back inside his pocket._

_The French doors opened behind him, and slammed back closed. He turned his head and saw the trimming of the familiar gown. His back stiffened. She lay a hand on his shoulder. "Bart! Mr Bass," she corrected, "don't you recognize me?"_

_Bart's brows furrowed and he turned around to come face to face with the image of his Evelyn._

" _It's Misty!" she exclaimed._

_She would have fooled him, except for the twinkle in her eyes. He would have believed more that Evelyn had risen from the dead and come back younger and stronger than she was when he last saw her alive, than that Evelyn possessed joy enough to make her eyes sparkle._

" _Misty." Little Misty, with her solitary life and somber gaze as she watched her mother willingly sink into the quicksand of her own death. "You're an Upper East Sider."_

" _My father was, apparently. Disowned when he married my mom. She wasn't from this side of the tracks."_

_No, he thought. Evelyn was so much more._

" _You've grown." Into the perfect image of her mother, only more vibrant, only pulsing with so much life he wanted to breathe what she did._

" _Of course," she said. And then it appeared like there was a flush in her cheeks._

" _You remember me." He had thought after what she had seen, she would block out memories of the last weeks of her mother's life._

_She nodded. "I remember when you came around wearing your uniform. Mommy said you were a real life hero."_

_And still, for a hero, he was not quite adept at saving a life._

" _Will you help me scratch off one of my hundred things to do? I want to dance with a hero on my debutante ball."_

_Maybe, he thought, just maybe, he could knock off one of the items in his list too. He always wanted to know how it felt to have his perfect woman in his arms, just for a night. When Evelyn died, he was sure that would remain on the list forever. He offered his arm to the young lady, and she slid her own willingly._

_Misty looked up at his with such admiration that he wondered whether Evelyn was right. Maybe he was a hero._

"What do you mean?" she asked. But it was almost like deep down she already knew. It was in the way he held her recently. It was in the way he looked at her. And even worse, sometimes it was in the way he studied the tight skin of her stomach, as if his eyes were boring deep, trying to see inside.

"I killed my mother," he confessed, looking down at his hands. Blair wondered if he saw blood smeared on them. "And I tried my hardest to make it up to my father." Chuck glanced up. "I never succeeded."

She bit her lip, because there was no way she could have been prepared to answer him.

"If he kills you, I'll hate him," he said, his voice without venom. He was stating it, more a certainty than a possibility. "And I feel so guilty knowing that."

How does a wife respond to an admission like that from her husband?

For the first time, she wished he just cheated on her. She had watched her mother most of her life, and she knew how a woman survived infidelity. She was clueless in this.

One thing she was absolutely sure of. Chuck Bass would not hate his son.

"I'm not going to die. And you're not going to hate him."

Deliberately she pulled off her blouse and sat with him in her skirt and bra. She rested back on the couch and drew his hand to her stomach.

_Please, little guy, just move a little. Show daddy you're there. Show daddy you're alive. Show daddy you're real. Make him fall in love with you more than he already is._

He almost drew back his hand, but she gripped his wrist so tightly he stayed.

"Do you feel him now?" she whispered. The baby was moving in gentle rolling motions. His eyes focused on the waving motions of under her skin. "That's your son."

He breathed, almost as if he were counting. Blair kept his hand pressed against her belly.

"He's saying hello," she said, blinking back her tears.

Chuck would love this boy. He already did. He had to know, there was no changing love like that.

"This baby is going to love you," she told her husband. "Because you're going love him so much that he'll never have to fight for your approval." Their son would never need to scheme in an effort to impress. "And you're going to spend all your free time with him so he never has to ask where his place is in your life." Their son would never need to run off to Monaco alone just because his father could not afford to take time off.

He almost trembled as he breathed. "And if he hurts you—"

"He won't."

"If he hurts you," Chuck repeated.

And so she told him, "There is no way you'd ever not love him."

A long moment later, Blair released his hand, and he drew it back almost immediately and fisted it on his thigh. She reached for the bottle of scotch, then uncapped it. Blair stood and went to the kitchen, heard him follow her. She met his eyes, then upended the bottle, pouring the expensive liquid down the drain.

"This has no business being in my house," she told him.

He watched the amber liquid circle the drain and vanish. "It's a failsafe."

She handed the empty bottle to him. "Never again, Chuck."

He grasped the neck of the bottle, then dropped it into the trashcan. Chuck allowed her to pull him back to the living room. She picked up the scrapbook from the coffee table, then turned the page to midway into the book.

Chuck looked down at the empty white space.

"What were the things you wished your father did with you?"

He released a sad chuckle. "Do you mean, what are the things that Bart Bass could never do?"

"Just tell me."

So he gave in. "Play catch."

She set out and wrote on the bottom of the page. "Playing catch."

"I wish he read to me."

"—ride a bike."

"—fishing."

By the end of fifteen minutes, they had gone through most of the pages of the scrapbook. "Now we know the subjects," she informed her husband. "Now we have a task list. Your responsibility is to make sure we have enough pictures for each of these pages."

_He had come alive for her._

" _Mr Bass, do you want to hold your son?"_

_Twenty two was far too young to die._

" _How's the boy?" he finally asked, because that would have been the first thing she asked._

" _His vitals are stable. His blood pressure is level. His breathing is fine. By all accounts, Mr Bass, Charles is a strong, healthy boy."_

_Chuck. She had wanted to call him Chuck._

" _Do you want us to prepare him for you?"_

" _No," he answered. "I'll be busy—making arrangements. Just keep him healthy, fed until I can hire a nurse and I can bring him home." No expense spared. None for Misty. Certainly none for the boy._

_When the doctor left, Bart turned his attention back to his wife, lying so still and quiet._

_Misty was hardly ever still and quiet in all their married life. He reached for her slack hand and studied the grayish tint that had begun to mar the pink unvarnished nails._

_Bart looked down at his watch. He still had time. The company could run itself by now. His secretary could make the arrangements any way he chose._

_A long time, he noted. Time hardly enough to spend with her._

Part 5

She was woken up by the doorbell the next day. Blair stretched from her position, having fallen asleep with her head on his lap. He stirred as well from his sitting position on their couch. The fingers on her stomach curled, and Blair loosened her hold on his wrist.

"Baby's home!" Blair gasped.

"Dorota!" Chuck exclaimed with similar excitement in his voice.

She tried to pull herself up, but Chuck held her shoulder. "I'll get the door. You don't want to get dizzy again." Happily, she nodded and allowed her husband to settle her down on the couch with throw pillows to prop her up.

Blair followed him with her eyes, noting each movement, the turn in his expressions. She sighed in relief. For the meantime, it seemed like he was not plagued with the horrific guilt that he had confessed to the night before. No matter how uncomfortable the arrangement was that they had fallen asleep on, it was well worth it. She placed a hand on the small of her back and stretched at the dull pain she felt. Only Blair Waldorf Bass could possibly complain of discomfort after a night on a ten thousand dollar couch.

Chuck opened the door and stepped aside as Baby bounded inside, leaping up on Chuck's thighs and wagging his tail. "Welcome home, Baby," Chuck greeted, rubbing the top of the dog's head. Dorota had picked up the dog the night before Blair's doctor's appointment, the way she usually did at Chuck and Blair's request. When taking the dog and when bringing him back, Dorota spent several more hours I their home supposedly to be away from Eleanor Rose, but the husband and wife knew it was more to be close to her charge for longer. The maid missed Blair, and that automatically put her in Chuck's book. He smirked at Dorota, who looked smashing in her uniform, carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag in one hand and holding Baby's leash on the other. "You brighten my morning, Dorota," Chuck said.

Blair watched from the couch as the maid stifled the grin she was sure was about to break. Dorota acted all scared of Chuck for most of her teenage life, but over the years she had seen her gruff maid being won over by her husband one comment at a time.

"I come early for breakfast in bed. You like breakfast in bed," Dorota pointed out.

Baby must have seen Blair on the couch, because he bounded off from Chuck to the living room and leapt on Blair. "Baby," Blair said, "I missed you all yesterday too." She turned to Dorota. "Thank you for taking care of him."

Dorota frowned when she saw Blair, then turned to Chuck. "Miss Blair slept on couch? She's pregnant and big." The maid made sounds of disapproval. "Up, Miss Blair. You go to bed and I bring you and Mr Chuck breakfast."

"Dorota," Blair protested with a smile, "come over here first."

The maid did as she was asked. Really, Dorota did everything Blair said since Blair was a little girl. And now Blair was having a baby herself. "How was your checkup? Do we get a girl?" Dorota asked.

"Ask Chuck," Blair said. She turned to Chuck, willing her husband to acknowledge the baby again, to talk about the child, to say aloud that he was having a son.

"Well, Mr Chuck? Do we get a tiny Miss Blair?" Dorota's eyes sparkled, not hiding her preference. Having taken care of Blair since she was on diapers, Blair could understand how Dorota missed a baby girl to dress up with little gowns and accessories.

"I would enjoy a little Blair," Chuck managed, "but this time you get to take care of a little Bass boy."

The crestfallen look on Dorota's face was priceless. "Little Mr Chuck?"

Blair broke into a large smile. "Yes. Little Chuck. That's cute. We should call him Chuckie!" she told her husband eagerly. She noticed the look on Dorota's face. "You don't like the name, Dorota?"

"I like a little Miss Blair better," Dorota said. "But we make do with a boy until the next one," the maid decided.

Chuck helped Blair stand, paused and asked her if she was dizzy. She shook her head, and could not help herself from stealing a kiss. Her husband then turned to Dorota and exclaimed, "You're kidding. A boy is perfectly fine. A boy can play ball."

"So can girls." Blair swatted his arm.

"Not you, Miss Blair. No sports for you. We couldn't get you to play anything that made you perspire," Dorota interjected.

Blair let Chuck lead her up the stairs. She glared when Chuck smirked at her. "I can get Blair to play even if it makes her sweaty."

"I swear, Chuck, I will push you down the stairs," Blair muttered.

Chuck dropped a kiss on Blair's nose. "You know you love me."

She responded with a smile, "I really do."

"Dorota," Chuck said, turning the maid who followed closely behind to make sure that Blair went to bed, "a boy will carry my name."

"Mr Chuck, it is not like we will insist on calling a girl Waldorf."

Blair wanted to laugh at the increasing frustration that Chuck could not hide well enough. "A boy will become a cub scout, build bonfires and tie knots to survive in the forest."

"There no forest in Manhattan," responded Dorota.

Blair giggled. They entered the bedroom, and she rolled her shoulders. The dull ache on the small of her back would not leave, so she glanced at her husband who seemed to be enumerating the benefits of having a boy to her maid who only ever experienced taking care of her—the girliest girl in the Upper East Side. The two could not see eye to eye, but she thanked God for Dorota's stubbornness that Chuck was now being forced to verbalize reasons that he would love having his son.

She excused herself. "I'll be right back." Blair slipped into the bathroom.

Her heart pounded heavily in her chest. The pregnancy had been easy, so easy. Apart from the occasional dizzy spells now that the baby was heavy on her nerves, the moment she stopped having morning sickness the entire pregnancy had been too easy to be real. There had been none of the dull ache today. She hoped this was only a product of her imagination. After having the baby's size confirmed by the doctor, it was highly probably that her mind was conspiring against her and giving her phantom pain. She gingerly settled herself over the cover of the ceramic toilet bowl. Blair lifted her skirt and glanced down at her thighs.

It confirmed what she feared.

Blair pulled herself up to her feet. She looked at her pale face in the mirror and grabbed a stick of colored gloss, then spread it over her lips. No need to terrorize her husband with her looking like a ghost.

When she opened the door and entered their bedroom, Chuck was changing quickly into a fresh shirt. He shrugged on an office jacket.

"Who won?" she asked softly.

Chuck grinned at her. "Presumably I did."

"How did you manage that?" Blair waited for him to finish putting on his clothes, since he would need clothes anyway after she told him.

As he set his tie in place, he answered, "I told her if you find out she doesn't approve of what you're having, you're going to be really disappointed."

Blair smiled tightly. "You are such a cheater, Bass."

When he was fully dressed, Chuck glanced at her and frowned. She supposed the smile she gave that comment was not nearly believable enough because he asked, "What's wrong, Blair?"

"I don't want you to panic," she started. Her husband stepped over to her and grasped her elbow. "I need to go to the hospital right now."

He physically seemed to pull away from her, and Blair blinked back her tears. Chuck flipped open his phone and barked into the mic, "The limo. Now."

"It will be okay, Chuck," she said. In reality, she was terrified.

"Are you in pain?" he managed.

She shook her head, but she was angered again by the tears that threatened to spill. No tears. Not in front of Chuck. "It's just spotting," she told him.

That was how it started with the first one, she remembered. That dull ache. The spotting. And then they told her to rest. When she woke up her bedsheets were ruined with blood. And the baby was gone.

"You don't need to pretend, Blair. Not with me."

She nodded. And then the tears rolled down. "Chuck." She grasped his hand tightly. "I'm scared." She looked up at her husband. He needed her, and she could not even get enough handle on herself, on the situation, to take care of him. It should not be Chuck standing up for them all the time. "I want to be brave. I can't be brave."

And then she was up in his arms, and he had curtly informed a shocked Dorota, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, to stay and call Eleanor and Cyrus to meet them in the hospital.

"No," she protested. If she lost the baby, she only wanted Chuck. "I don't want to see anyone else."

Chuck nodded, and told Dorota to stay for Baby instead. "We won't lose him," he said softly. "Not this time, Blair."

He walked into the elevator holding his wife in his arms. Blair grasped his shirt, then urgently said, "Make sure we don't lose him." Chuck nodded. "If I'm not conscious when we get there, promise me you'll make sure we don't lose the baby, Chuck."

"I promise," he said gruffly.

Blair hoped he knew what it meant. When it came to choices, she hoped Chuck knew what that promise stood for.

The emergency room was a blur to her. The moment they took her from Chuck, she had been given a drip that contained drugs that would help the baby hold onto her womb. She saw her husband pacing outside her room with a phone to her ear. Blair called to him.

"Chuck, how's the baby?"

Chuck sat beside her and pushed the hair away from her face. "I don't want you stressing yourself over anything," he told her. "He's doing fine. The doctor says that there was a vessel that burst and that was the cause of the bleed. They will check to see in a couple of hours if they need to cauterize." Blair released a large breath of relief. Her hands covered her stomach. This time, his hand joined hers. "I told you, didn't I? He's a Bass. He sticks around."

" _When Chuck grows up," Misty said, lying between her husband's legs while Bart massaged her shoulders, "he's going to be a writer. Or a painter." Her voice was dreamy as she continued, "Or a sculptor. He's going to be a popular, eccentric artist."_

_Bart guffawed. "And where will he get the talent to do that? I've never seen you pick up a pencil to even doodle."_

" _Fine," she huffed. "He'll be a businessman like you."_

_Bart grinned at her. "With a father like me, there's no other choice for him, I'm afraid."_

_Misty's hand rose to clutch his. She turned around and said in her serious voice. "Bart, we'll support him whatever he wants to do," she said. "Even if Chuck wants to sing and dance for a living, we'll support him."_

_Bart grunted in a displeased manner. "Sing and dance?" He shook his head. "You think he might want to be an entertainer?" He looked down at the large belly on her almost as if it was an eavesdropping stranger._

" _If he wants to be," she trailed off._

_Bart rolled his eyes. "Alright, Chuck. Go be a dancer if you want to be." To his wife he said pointedly, "Don't wait up for me tomorrow night. I might need to work more hours so Chuck will have enough fall back on if he does turn out to be some entertainer."_

She was always tired now. Since her fifth month, Blair Waldorf Bass had not hosted a charity ball. Chuck increasingly became more concerned for his wife when he would come home at seven and find her in bed. He crawled behind her and pulled her towards him, spooning with her so that her distended belly would not be between them.

Was it so bad that he would rather feel _her_?

He did not even know she was awake. Blair took his hands and splayed them on her belly. "Hug him too," she requested.

His throat closed. "Alright, Blair."

"He's saying hello," she whispered sleepily.

True enough, the child started a restless movement under his hands. Without looking at it, he knew her stomach was rolling with the baby. "He's active. Does he hurt you when he does that?"

Blair shook her head. "No. He's an angel, Chuck."

Death was an angel too.

His hands fisted and he abruptly let go of her belly. Chuck looked down at Blair, who lay on her side and looked up at him with misty eyes. He leaned down and captured her mouth hungrily. His hand cupped her face.

She smiled up breathlessly. "Just a few more weeks," she said. "And then we'll have everything we ever wanted."

His thumb brushed circles on her cheekbones. How long had it been when all he could do was beg her to have a baby with him, thinking it would complete his life to have a child fully depend only on him? God, was he ever that young?

"You're my everything," he said, and was surprised that the words came out in a choking whisper. "I swear, Blair."

"And the baby is a very welcome addition, right?"

He nodded, because he was the one who said it only a few months ago. He had been so proud of his accomplishment, so blind that he could not see.

"I wish you can say it," she said, her eyes closing.

Chuck pressed closer against her back. He pressed his lips on her shoulder. _I love him._ It would have been so simple, so easy, and would have made her so happy. For most of his adult life, he had wanted to make Blair Waldorf happy.

How bad of a father did it make a man to withhold three simple words from a child?

"I—I love you, Blair."

She turned in his arms and pressed her nose against his throat. Chuck wrapped her tightly in his embrace. "Let's go shopping tomorrow," she suggested with a yawn. "I saw a pair of little satin mittens that I think we should get."

Their kid already had more clothes than he did, but he answered, because this was how he could it without baring himself, without letting their son have all of it just in case—

"I'll clear my schedule," he said in immediate agreement.

Part 6

Other men brought cigars to the birth of a son. In fact, Chuck knew from a story passed around in Bart Industries that the day he was born, Bart Bass had passed around Cubans to the board. Bart had been in the middle of a conference when his secretary told him that the hospital called to tell him that his wife was in labor.

" _Mark the day, gentlemen," Bart proclaimed to the seated men. "Today I have a son."_

_He had called his driver immediately, left right in the middle of his meeting. His beautiful wife was in labor, and he was a dutiful husband and would wait outside. Everything was falling into place now. Everything he wanted with Evelyn, fate had given him in the form of her daughter. And what a woman Misty was._

_His adoration for Evelyn started in childhood. She was the lovely young woman that all the boys in his block wanted. When she was sixteen, and he was ten, Evelyn woke his earliest signs of boyhood. He watched her pass by while he stood on the first wooden plank of their fence. He had been flustered about the girl with the sad eyes, who walked along the cobbled streets haunted by a permanent cloud. And Bart always thought he was the one who could make her happy._

_Beauty was sadness to Bart, because Evelyn had always been sad._

_Until his warm, vibrant Misty._

_Bart stopped in the toy store on the way to the hospital. Quickly, he gathered a bright yellow cotton flower because it looked like the sun and Misty loved raising her face to the sunshine. He plucked a two foot tall teddy bear wearing a beret because he remembered Misty's illusions that Chuck could turn out to be an artist. For good measure, he picked up a small ball that Chuck could kick at in his crib, because boys should always learn to shoot hoops._

_Far be it that Chuck was probably an hour old at the most._

_He paid with a black Mastercard, then picked up his items. He hesitated to leave the cashier. When the girl looked up at him, he grinned. "My wife is having our baby." And he relished the congratulations that came from the employee and the other people who were on the line._

_He went to the nurse's station and asked, "Misty Bass?"_

_The nurse put down her pen, looked up at him, almost fearfully. "Mr Bass, the doctor will be out with you." She gestured to the seats. "If you can wait here while I call him."_

"Mr Bass."

Chuck looked up from his uncomfortable seat in the waiting room. The nurse smiled at him. He supposed he probably made for an odd picture in his suit, holding on to the blue and orange giraffe. The stuffed toy had a neck so long the head was starting to droop forward.

His heart pumped slowly, heavily, like he was trapped in a slow motion hell. "How is she?"

"She's fine. She's in her room and you can see her now."

It was great news. If he learned anything throughout the past years, there was no such thing as great news. He called her doctor and asked himself.

His relief was so great he swore his heart spun and twisted his veins. He had wanted to be here for the birth. They had prepared to be together. So when Dorota called him to say that Blair had been taken to the hospital, Chuck had immediately rushed to the delivery room.

He walked over to the hospital suite and smiled down at her. She turned to him, her lips a little pale, her eyes a little tired, but she was beautiful, far healthier and more awake than he had imagined she would be in his nightmares. "Waldorf, you couldn't wait for me," he greeted softly.

"He's a little bit spoiled, I think," she whispered, her voice cracking from her dry mouth. Dorota arrived with a glass of ice water and held it up to her lips. Blair sipped a little. "We all have to follow his timing."

He picked up her hand and squeezed. "Normal delivery." While most other women elected for scheduled C-sections, his wife braved the full labor experience even with a big baby boy. "How are you?" She shivered. Chuck pulled her blanket higher up her body. "I should get you an electric blanket or something."

"Have you seen him?" she asked, yawning. He shook his head. "Will you?" Blair requested.

"After you." He brought her knuckles up to his lips for a kiss. "You did such a great job. I can't—I can't tell you how proud I am of you."

Her lips curved in sheer pleasure at the words. "Thank you."

"Thank you, Blair," he emphasized.

"They can't bring him to me because he's a little premature," she told her husband. "So I'll need to go to him, but I can't be wheeled out yet. Will you see him now, Chuck? It's our son's first hours outside." Of her, her womb, her body. "He must feel so cold and lost. Will you hold him for me?"

He hesitated, but she urged him with the pressure on his hand. But she was fine. The labor that killed his mother was nothing to her. She was so strong. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too," came the faint response. "When you get back here, we'll settle on a name, okay?"

He would have named him anything she wanted now, because she just showed all of them how much stronger she was. She curled on her side and closed her eyes. To sleep. She really needed to rest her whole body. He could imagine how much pain it must have been to deliver a Bass son, and she seemed unfazed except for the exhaustion that made her eyelids droop.

He placed a kiss on her forehead, planning in his head the party he would throw her when she could come back home. It was no small feat, but she had delivered his baby and she finally have him everything he wanted. He had everything he ever needed, and never thought he'd have. Chuck made his way out of her suite. A young nurse smiled and greeted him as she made her way into Blair's room with a chart.

Chuck walked over to the nurse's station. "I'd like to see my son." He would have preferred his first visit with his son be when Blair could also come, so they could hold him together the first time. But she was right. If she was not yet allowed to go to the boy, then their son should have human contact with at least one of them. "I'd like to take him to his mother," he said. Maybe he could influence them to break protocol at least once. Blair should be able to touch the baby, to hold him to her chest and let him listen to her heartbeat.

She deserved to have a vignette of baby book poses with the son that they fought for, that they lived for, that they ultimately almost separated for, that finally brought them closer together.

The nurse blinked up at him. "Mr Bass, let me see what we can do."

He smirked, satisfied at least that it was not a no. The light on the board lit up, and Chuck waved the nurse of to allow her to check. The nurse glanced and looked up at him wide-eyed. And then, she grabbed her phone.

It was a scene straight out of a movie for Chuck, the bells, the lights, the successive beeps. The nurse rushed out of her station. Chuck turned around and saw the flood of interns and nurses all running towards the room he had just left. It could have been adrenaline, but he powered through them and burst into Blair's room himself.

The young nurse he had passed by earlier pulled the blanket completely away from his wife's body. Chuck resisted the urge to step forward and cover up her thighs. His eyes grew wide at the bright red blood that had soaked through her mattress, that had stained her legs.

"Blair!" Chuck called urgently. He saw her face, and she looked the same exact way she did when he left earlier—sleeping, tired. He saw Dorota to the side of the room, wringing her hands. "What the hell happened, Dorota?" he yelled.

The maid winced at the tone of his voice but he didn't care. Chuck tried to squeeze through the throng of the interns, but he was pushed firmly away. "Sir, you should give us some space."

Chuck watched and listened in horror.

"Postpartum hemorrhage—"

"Has anyone contacted her OB?"

"1200 ccs?"

And then they were putting on a mask on her, hiding most of her face from his view. Chuck stumbled backwards, and he felt Dorota's hand rest on his arm.

"It's oxygen, Mr Chuck," Dorota said, her voice seemingly strained yet being forced to sound calm. "Oxygen is good."

He needed someone, needed to hold onto someone's hand, needed to hold on so he wouldn't fall. The only one he could think of to break in front of was the one lying unconscious on the bed.

It was a normal delivery, and she had been fine.

And now there was a man who had a hand on pressing down on her womb and another between her legs, massaging, trying to stem the blood. If Blair were awake, she would be horrified. Chuck wanted to pull them away from his wife. But if that was going to save her life, he was paralyzed.

"Do you want I call Mr Nate?" He shook his head.

An IV was pushed into the room, a bag of liquid hung. He scowled when they pierced her arm and placed the drip in. The door swung open and revealed their doctor. The woman spoke briskly to the intern for a rundown. The doctor looked up and saw him.

"Chuck," the doctor said quietly. "Let's step outside."

"No," Chuck whispered, her eyes focused only on Blair. The intern seemed to be doing his job. His surgical gloves were drenched in blood, but the sheets were not getting bloodier. The nurse checked the drip on Blair's arm and seemed satisfied. But the mask, still in place, scared him the most, told him she needed help breathing, told him she couldn't get oxygen on her own. "I'm not leaving my wife." He glared at the doctor, almost as if she had betrayed them. "You said the delivery went perfectly," he rasped.

"It did, Chuck. Your son is healthy and alive. Blair was doing fine." She placed a comforting hand on his arm. Meanwhile, as one by one the nurses left the room, leaving only three people working on Blair, he noticed Dorota wander forward to fix Blair's hair, to pull off the strands caught under the oxygen mask. "This was a possibility your wife was aware of given the size of the baby. It wasn't a big chance, but it was a chance she knew nonetheless."

"What happens now?"

"The team has done everything by the book. We'll let the prostaglandin do its work. The obstetric massage helped. We'd like to know exactly how much blood she lost. If we need to, we'll start a blood transfusion."

Chuck glanced at his wife. There was only one nurse left with her.

"We're moving her so she can get a fresh set of mattress and sheets."

He noticed Dorota puttering inside the small closet and pulling out a new nightgown for Blair.

"For now, Chuck, it's waiting. I suggest you spend the time with your son while we see to your wife."

As if he could abandon his wife now. The last time he believed he could leave her to check on the baby, they almost lost her. If anything, he needed to stand vigil now.

"You wife has already touched him, Chuck. I firmly believe a parent should have contact with a newborn as soon as possible."

Chuck shook his head. The team of orderlies and nurses arrived to transfer Blair to the new bed. The bed rails were lowered, and the orderlies grasped the edges of the bedsheet. Chuck shrugged off his coat and held up his hand. Gingerly, he lifted his wife up in his arms, taking care of the lines running from her body to the IV and the oxygen. And then, he laid her down on the fresh bed. The orderlies carted the old one out.

"Mr Chuck," he heard, when it was only him and Dorota in the hospital suite. "Miss Blair thinks your son looks like you."

He settled heavily on the seat beside Blair's bed, then took her hand in his. "Go on, Dorota. Check on the baby then go back home to feed the dog. I'll stay with Blair."

Flustered, Dorota stood up. Chuck refused to meet her eyes. "I change her gown."

He grabbed her wrist when the maid reached for the dress. "I'll do it. Dorota, go on. I need to be alone."

" _Have you seen your son?"_

_Bart stood up when they returned to take Misty away. They rolled the bed towards the doorway. He grabbed the metal frame. Carefully, he drew down the white blanket, then smiled another time at his wife. Even with her eyes closed, she needed to know he smiled. She lived her life making him happy to send her away with a frown._

_He looked up at the doctor. Soon the man would lose his license. It was a simple birth, and he killed his wife._

" _You said yourself that Chuck is alive. He's in a better position than my wife. He'll be fine."_

" _Your son hasn't had human contact with anyone apart from the nurses taking care of him."_

_Bart's jaw twitched. "Nurses are human enough."_

" _You know what we mean."_

" _Not right now," he said sharply, cutting off the man. "I'll get to Chuck when I'm ready."_

Part 7

There had never been a day when he did not hate his father for hating him.

Until today.

Chuck slammed the door shut and leaned his head back against it, staring silently at the blank darkness that was the best his money could buy, the only place that made sense, the only home he could imagine for his then blossoming family. And he wondered whether or not his father, at one point in his life, did the same thing—scoured the city and rejected hundreds of places, invested time and effort imagining his wife sitting by the window, and a little boy or a little girl toddler running around, fantasizing how a child's laughter would peal like, dreaming up little kisses he would exchange with the only woman he could think of spending the rest of his life with.

If Bart did any one of those things, Chuck could finally understand how a father could despise his son.

Because really, Chuck could not bring himself to that nursery where his nameless son slept. If he saw him, if he hated him, he would be exactly like his father.

The dog came bounding towards him, leaping cheerfully and wagging his tail. He barked once at Chuck and panted expectantly, waiting for the door to open. When it did not, the tail slowed and he sat waiting for who he assumed naturally came with his master.

Poor bastard.

If anything happened to Blair, that dog would spend the rest of his life waiting by the door brokenhearted.

There was only one reason he let Cyrus push him to come home, and it wasn't because the old man insisted he take a shower or eat something. It wasn't even because Cyrus promised to keep him apprised of any change in Blair, and that Chuck trusted Cyrus to keep his word no matter what happened.

He walked to the bedroom and removed the art piece that Nate had given them for his wedding—an original Abrams abstract that he had once thought was oddly reminiscent of his best friend's hidden treasures. When Blair had received it, she had stared at the painting for a long moment and murmured about how familiar it was, but that she could not place exactly what it reminded her of. And just because he was sickly amused that Nate had been so forgettable, Chuck did not tell his wife what he suspected inspired the piece, and hung it on their bedroom wall.

If she survived this, he would confess that to her and burn the damn thing.

When he revealed the mounted safe, Chuck entered the pincode and pulled the small door open. And it was the only treasure he hid from his wife. It had been too too long since his throat burned with something other than the acid of fear. Why the hell did he stop drinking when life was better spent under the haze of alcohol?

His eyes drifted to the small photo frame that held a snapshot of the two of them on their wedding day, standing the way they did in front of the mirror a long time ago when he begged her for a baby. She had just gotten sick in the sink, and he was only just recovering from his addiction, and he had dared to wrap his arms from behind her and plead with her.

As if a baby could change everything.

She was vibrant and so beautiful, just like the very way Bart described Misty to an old friend when he thought Chuck wasn't listening.

" _Warm, beautiful, vibrant," his father's deep voice sounded. "She was my everything. Still is. I can lose everything and everyone else the very next second and it will be fine if I open my eyes and I see her standing there."_

And he had wondered, with his nine-year old brain, if everything and everyone included him. And every dictionary in the world told him it did.

The scrapbook sat on the bed, halfway open, and he suspected that Blair felt the first harmless pains of labor right there on their bed. He sat heavily on it and touched the slight dip on the sheets. Chuck reached for the scrapbook and read through the other pages she had added on her own.

First haircut. First swim. First wound. First tooth.

She really thought he could track all that?

Bart sure had nothing on him earlier than his kindergarten graduation, and only because his nanny loved the little devil that he was and snapped shots of Chuck jumping on the principal's shoe. He flipped back to the sonogram. The book fell open, and there it was, adorned with shiny little butterfly cutouts all over the page. So many fluttering butterflies he couldn't help but stop and look.

First day.

She wanted a picture of the baby's first day. And in less than two hours, any chance for that picture would be lost forever.

" _Mr Bass."_

_Bart did not turn around, his gaze glued to the covered gurney as it was rolled out of the room. There was nothing and everything left. Nothing and everything to do, to say. Nothing and everything when you know you're going to bury the love of your life._

_He always thought Misty would bury him, and he had planned a magnanimous gesture to one day record a video for her telling her she could marry again, a good, responsible man who would take care of her and love Chuck._

" _Here's your son."_

_And then the child was in his arms. He inspected the arrogant nose, the narrow eyes, the tuft of dark hair that was so much like his mother that Bart wanted to turn his eyes away. Instead, he stared at the boy, who had no business meeting his eyes because babies were supposed to be blind their first day out of the womb. And so he suspected Chuck did not stare back because he saw him. Chuck held his eyes focused like so out of sheer stubbornness._

" _How do you propose I look at you every day," Bart asked the infant very softly, "and not remember your mother?"_

_The infant was silent, but blinked blearily almost as if he was trying to adjust to the light._

" _Let me set your expectations, Charles," he said, wondering when it was he decided to drop the nickname Misty had so fondly told everyone about. "Sometimes I'll find it very hard to even look at you."_

_And there was a tiny whimper._

" _But I'll give you everything you'll ever need," he promised. To Bart, who grew up with nothing, that commitment was everything. The best schools, the most expensive clothes, all the freedom in the world, even, maybe—ridiculous as it sounded to a war veteran—a personal chauffeur and a limo to take him around the city. "You'll never want for anything in your life."_

The nurse held the camera up as Chuck made his way to the fiber glass incubator that contained Baby Boy Bass. Chuck took a deep breath, then gripped the plastic walls. Slowly, willing his heart to calm, he peered at the child.

To find the baby looking up at him with soft brown eyes.

"Is he okay?" he rasped at the nurse.

"He's perfectly healthy, Mr Bass," responded the young woman.

Chuck found it unsettling that the child seemed to quietly watch him move, or speak, almost as if the infant recognized his voice. "Then why is he in there?"

"All babies born prematurely are placed in incubators. But even from the time he was born, the doctor has said he's perfectly healthy and large for his age." And Chuck just knew that, but couldn't muster up the same hurt. Not in front of the kid. "You can take him out, Mr Bass. The baby's pediatrician has left express orders to let you hold him."

And then, he watched in avid fascination as the eager young nurse lifted his child out of the incubator. And then he was holding the baby in his arms, and his throat was closed and he was afraid he would choke without air. His hand cupped the back of the baby's head, and the hair was so soft and nearly pitch black like Blair's was as a baby.

The red lips pursed, and they were so delicate like a heart.

"Your mother's right," he realized, his voice low enough that the baby would not be disturbed. He swore, even if he never saw the baby's face, just the feeling of that tiny body in his arms, completely dependent against his chest, and there was only one thing he could be sure of. "I can't ever hate you." He nuzzled the tip of his nose against the baby's tuft of hair, careful not to scratch its skin with his stubble.

The nurse returned to the room. He had not even realized that she had left.

"Mr Bass, they need you in your wife's room. Right now."

And his instinct was to pull the child tighter against his body. As if sensing his panic, the baby stirred, then reached up an uncontrolled hand and reached for his chin. He told the nurse, "I'm taking him."

"Mr Bass, we can't take the baby out of the nursery."

"Please," he said, holding the child closely to him, "just in case."

When he arrived in her room and found her sitting up against the pillows, with Dorota brushing her hair, his knees almost buckled in his relief. Chuck cradled the baby close to him, then hurried to his wife, displacing Dorota as he squeezed in right beside Blair and captured her lips.

"You're awake," he breathed.

She nodded, then marveled at the bundled baby in her husband's arms. "Did you steal him? We're not allowed to take him from the nursery."

"The boy's hardier than you," Chuck told her. "You scared me."

"I know. I'm sorry."

He shook his head, because no way in the world was it her fault. "Besides," he added softly, "we need to have a picture for your scrapbook. First day," Chuck reminded her.

They smiled for the camera, and Dorota happily snapped that shot and dozens of candid ones later. When the maid left to print out copies on Blair's photo printer at home, Chuck turned to Blair and said, "The name's yours."

She smiled, and he prepared himself to call his baby Amsterdam. She asked, "I was thinking—why should we use the name of a place we visited, when so much more happened here?" Blair reached for the baby, and he surprised himself when he was just a little bit reluctant to give the baby up so easily. "In Manhattan."

"That's a girl's name."

She shrugged. "The next one then, if it's a girl."

And he knew there would be countless wars fought between them at the idea of another child. But that was an issue for another day.

"York," he suggested. "Close enough to New York, and it sounds strong and decisive."

"York Bass. Sounds rich."

"He has you," was Chuck's response. "He's rich."

Later that week, on the first day she returned to their home, Blair slept on the bed while Chuck walked back and forth, wearing the carpet thin with his strides. "Come on, York, you have to sleep. Don't wake mommy up."

And still, the baby cried even more. Chuck glared at the stack of CDs that contained his parents' home videos. Blair had discovered them in her boredom as they went through the items that Bart bothered to keep from his short-lived marriage. When she found the box of old movies, she had them immediately converted to digital.

The CD right on top mocked him.

"Rock a bye, Chuck," said the title. And he highly doubted Bart Bass' parenting skills even came close to his own. Then again, he had no idea exactly what type of person Bart was. After delving into his private life, it seemed that there was no one personality involved.

When Blair blinked up at him and offered with a yawn, "Chuck, do you want me to take him?"

"No," he answered. "Rest up. I have an idea."

Blair gave him a tiny smile and closed her eyes. Chuck plucked the CD from the stack and inserted it into the player.

His eyes widened when the television powered on, and he saw a pregnant Misty Bass, for the very first time. Chuck's eyes flew to the stack of CDs and wondered how many of them contained his mother. One picture, it was all Bart allowed him. And here, if every one of the CDs contained a split second of his mother, it would be worth all the hours spent scouring them.

" _Bart, make him sleep. I can't get any rest. He's so energetic."_

Chuck was amazed at the sight of his father, with his full head of hair and an easy smile, lie next to the woman on the bed and place a hand on her stomach.

On him, he realized.

" _Chuck, you're beating up your old lady. Sleep."_

" _I know!" Misty gasped. "Sing to him. He loved your baritone."_

_Bart made a face, evident on the camera. And then, he sang, "You know I can't smile without you. I can't smile without you. I can't laugh and I can't sing. I'm finding it hard to do anything."_

Chuck's jaw twitched. Briskly, he put the player on pause, and the video stopped at the very image of Bart Bass singing the words not to the baby but to his wife.

And it was all true.

"Chuck."

He turned around, and met Blair's warm gaze. She smiled at him and patted the bed beside her. He recognized what she was asking, and looked down at the baby in his arms.

"Put York in his crib. Come to bed, Chuck."

He placed the baby in the crib, and padded the child's sides with small pillows. He leaned over the baby and kissed his ear. "I love you, York," he said, establishing a ritual he would never break.

And then he crawled into bed next to his wife. Blair raised her head and pillowed it on Chuck's arm. Her fingers traced letters on his stomach. He felt the curves of her script. "You've given me everything, Blair."

She nodded, pressed her face against his shirt. Blair kissed his chest. "If I could sing," she whispered, "I'd sing that song for you."

"I know, Blair."

He closed his eyes, and then heard the shy, whispered song, "You know I can't smile without you—" And, he thought, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the world has decided he wouldn't need to try.

fin


End file.
